The Clockwork Dynasty
by Daniel H. Wilson
Doubleday Books
Ccopyright 2017 by the author

June Stefanov is an expert in the repair and restoration of antique “clockwork” devices and automata. She got into the trade thanks to some unintentional inspiration from her Russian grandfather, who survived the Battle of Stalingrad and bequeathed to her both a tale of a mysterious soldier of superhuman ability and an unusual bit of metal he recovered from that hellscape.

Now, she’s been summoned to an old church in Oregon, where they have one of these devices in storage – and is badly in need of repair. Unfortunately for her, there are people who would rather she didn’t fix it – and she finds herself caught up in a centuries-long battle among a hidden cabal of quasi-immortal machines.

There’s a subgenre of “steampunk” that takes the ideas of that genre and transports them back in time to the era of the Enlightenment. Rulers and wealthy people at the time had a fascination with mechanical and clockwork toys that showed of the skills of their craftsmen and impressed visitors. Called “clockpunk”, it has the engineering masters of the era creating all sorts of devices – including robots – powered by springs or some magical energy instead of steam, and serving a similar literary purpose.

Wilson has taken that idea and added in legends of similar mechanical creatures that go back many centuries to craft a fast-paced tale of action, adventure, and mystery.

He’s taken a bit of a gamble, though. Despite being the first significant character we meet, June is not the real protagonist. That task belongs to Pyotr, the automata who rescues her from a gunfight and brings her along on his journey. That old battle souvenir that June has is a vitally important artifact to the automata – and Pyotr’s quest – but he is too decent to just kill her and take it. June actually winds up being rather unimportant overall; her character is just along for the ride. The real story is Pyotr’s finding meaning and purpose to his existence.

The novel switches back and forth between the present and Pyotr’s past, allowing us to see just what Pyotr was, and why he became what he is. The location changes, too, but it’s not important since the geography rarely comes into play.

There’s a little philosophical issue with the automata (other than the “can you give an artificial person a ‘soul’?”) that gets a good deal of discussion. Each of them is supposed to have a word engraved on the piece that functions as a sort of battery (reasonably equivalent to the “word” that animates a golem). The word is their driving motive. Pyotr’s partner / sidekick / daughter automata, Elena, has “Logicka” on hers (they were both “assembled” in early 18^th century Russia….). It translates roughly as “reasoning”; so she is driven to learn and study pretty much everything. Pyotr’s is “Pravda”, which can mean either “truth” or “justice” – or a fusion of both. The subtext here is how one defines a concept such as “truth” or “virtue”, and put it into action. Especially when the meaning of the word can change over time, or with its usage.

Although reasonably well written, and fast-paced with plenty of action, I found I was a bit let down by the ending. The stakes of the “War Among the Automata” were never really made clear, and there was a bit too much left open at the end – Wilson clearly wants to be able to write a sequel.

I still enjoyed it, though. A cabal of quasi-immortal robots of unknown origin, observing and perhaps guiding humanity according to some hard-wired principles that they are compelled to follow….An interesting concept, that. If there is a sequel, I’ll probably read it if my library gets it.